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Prologue
Explanation and Analysis—The Chorus's Opening :
In the Prologue to the play, just before Act 1, the Chorus foreshadows Romeo and Juliet's eventual deaths, and describes an ironic end to the plot to come:
Two households, both alike in dignity
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
Related Themes:
Act 4, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Friar Laurence's Logic:
In Act 4, Scene 1, Juliet—having learned that her family is about to marry her to Paris—goes to Friar Laurence and threatens to kill herself. Friar Laurence begs her not to and hastily devises a solution, which he persuades her to agree to through the use of logos:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Hold, daughter, I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry County Paris,
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop’st with death himself to ’scape from it;
And if thou darest, I’ll give thee remedy.
Related Themes:
